How to Make a Mobile Payment App: Peer 2 Peer App

Nowadays most of the people do not carry physical cash with them, everyone wants to use a credit card, digital wallet or a payment app. Mobile payment apps such as Venmo, Paypal have made people more addicted to digital payments in the last two decades. Among various mobile payment apps, Peer 2 Peer apps have been very popular among consumers. P2P payment apps are successful because they enable users to send money to your family, friends, and other known persons without visiting your bank. Thus, if you have an idea of payment app idea then you can implement on these following steps. You can convert your payment app idea into a successful reality like Venom and Paypal.

What Are The Different Types of P2P Mobile App

The P2P payment apps provide users with a fast and secure way to transfer payment from one person to another person. These apps create a link between the sender’s bank/credit card account and the receiver’s bank account/credit card account. These apps are created by various types of businesses based upon their business models. Following are the types of business models for P2P mobile apps:

1) Created by Banks

Banks are developing their payment apps enabling their users to transact and manage their bank accounts without visiting their branch. Dwolla, Zelle, PopMoney, clearXchange are some examples. The app provides users with direct access to their bank account. They can deposit and withdraw money from their accounts. Users can send money from their bank accounts to anyone else’s bank accounts.

2) Created by Financial Institutions

PayPal, Venmo, Square Cash, Alipay, Paytm, M-Pesa are some examples of the financial institution payment app. These are not created by banks, they are created by big companies with an approved status of financial institutions. These are money transfer apps, users can transfer money from their credit card/bank account to other’s credit card/bank accounts. You can use these apps to transfer money for personal transactions or business transactions as well.

3) Created by Social Platforms

The social media apps have leveraged their popularity and user base to build payment transfer features as well. WeChat, Square Cash, Snapchat, are some examples of P2P payment features within a social platform. Users can transfer money with their friends, family, and other people, who are using the same social media platform. They reward you in the form of cashback and coupons when you pay or receive money using their social media payment apps.

4) Created by Phone Networks

The phone network companies have also been providing P2P payment apps for a long time. This model is not available in North America or Europe, it is more popular in Asia and Africa. Users not only can send and receive money but also can pay utility bills and other payments. Idea Pay, Airtel money, Jio money are some examples. These apps do not require high authentication at the time of transaction.

5) Created by OS/Device Manufacturer

The mobile companies have also developed their payment app. The users having a similar device can transfer money as Apple users can pair with Apple devices. Apple pay, Google pay, Samsung pay are some examples. You can very secure transactions with these options as the apps are protected with the device passwords. Your account details or debit/credit card details are saved in the app, which eliminated the re-entering procedure.

Common Features for P2P Mobile Payment App

The payment app features make the app different from that of the competitors. Therefore, while developing your payment app you should focus on creating unique features based upon your target audience. You should try to adopt simple and unique features rather than going with the complex and repeat features. Since you are developing payment apps like Venmo, Paypal, you should be aware of some common features that need to be enabled in a mobile payment app.

1) User Authentication

You want to make sure that people who sign up for your app are authentic and they are not on your platform to do frauds. You can do by verifying the user with their pictures, driver’s license, bank accounts, and phone numbers. You can also use IP address and geolocation to make sure users are located where they claim to be.

2) Two Way Authentication

Since you will be building an app for users to send money, implementing two-way authentication is very important. You want to make sure no fraud happens using your platform. One example of two-way authentication is OTP (One time password). In this case, the sender receives an OTP on their mobile phone when the sender initiates the money transfer. This makes sure that the sender double confirms the initiation of money transfer.

3) Use of QR Code

If you are transferring money to a business where you will be physically present, you can use the QR code feature. Businesses who will be receiving the money can generate a unique QR code, which they can place at the location. The sender can scan the QR code and send the money. This will help you to validate that the receiver and senders are both in agreement to send the money and are physically present.

4)Transaction History

The payment app allows their users to track the amount spent by them within the specified time frame. The app should show users monthly, weekly or daily transaction. These records can help to track your transaction and help you to budget your expenses.

5) Ability to pay Bills

You can add features in your app to pay bills such as utility bills, credit card bills and others. You will have to integrate your platform with utility companies and credit card companies to make this feature available. This can be a great add on for your mobile payment app.

Select The Payment Gateways

After you have decided the features for your app, you can focus on selecting the payment gateway. There are several payment gateways available in each Country. In the USA, popular gateways are Stripe, Braintree, Authorize.net. Processors like Firstdata, Forte Payment, Global payments also provide their own gateways. In Asia, popular gateways are CCAvenue, E-Billing solution, Direct pay, PayUmoney. While selecting payment gateways for your app, you should evaluate the security features, fees, popularity and ease of integration. You should reach out to different gateway providers and analyze what they provide. For example, stripe has a unique feature, which allows you to hold the money for a few days before sending it to the receiver. Venmo and Paypal payment apps make it easy for you to transfer money to someone who has also had a PayPal and Venmo account.

Understand the Regulations and Compliance

PCI compliance is a set of rules and regulations for the payment app to build a secure payment gateway for the users. Your payment app has to be PCI compliant before it is launched. Your payment app being PCI compliant provides the confidence to the user that their bank account details will be secured, and users can make a secure online transaction. The PCI compliance is distributed at different levels and every level has its different requirements depending upon the size of your business. They check the authenticity of the payment app. They bond the apps to provide an updated Antivirus security to safeguard the confidential information of the users. The PCI compliance can cost you around $1000 to $40,000 depending upon the size of your business. You also need to comply with the general banking regulation to protect your app from being involved in any money laundering activities.

Know Your Customer (KYC)

You should know your customer before they start transacting using your app. You need to make sure that neither your users nor your app are being involved in any money laundering activities or fraudulent activities. There is a need for basic compliance (rules and regulations) for opening an account in your payment apps such as Name, Address, Identification number, bank details, and others. The verification procedure for the KYC norms should be simple but effective so that users’ important details are covered. The app must allow its users to get the verification done by themselves, which they can do by uploading the scanned copy of their certified documents.

Research About Your Competitors

Researching your competitors provide you with an idea about the impact of their app on the market. While investigating your competitors you can identify the key factors, which have strengthened and weakened their payment app. You can update those features in your app for strength and take necessary steps to avoid those weaknesses. The different features introduced by your competitors in their apps can also be identified. The key factors, which require more attention can be discovered and you can work on those factors to attract more users to your app.

Hire A Team With The Mobile Payment App Experience

After you have developed the outlay for your app, you need to hire a development team for its execution similar to Venmo and Paypal payment app. You have various options: you can hire a development team or you can hire a freelancer. They both come with their benefits; the development team can be more costly but professional; freelancers can be less expensive but unpredictable. You should also decide the location of your team, whether it should be in the USA or Europe or Asia. The offshore development team can be less costly as compared to hiring an onshore development team. You can outsource the development work to countries like India, Ukraine, Russia with a good pool of talent. Before hiring, you should conduct a detailed investigation of the past and present projects of the development team. You can also conduct serve and collect feedback from their clients or friends to judge the effectiveness of your work.

Design, Develop and Launch

Launching a full updated version app will take time as you need to first design the app, then develop and test it. Once have finalized the key features of your app, you proceed with creating a user engaging designs for your app. Creating an attractive design for your app may take around 6 to 8 weeks. Before you design your app you should research about the trend and updated designs in the app industries. The unique design will provide your app with a distinct appearance, which will be different from your competitors.

Once the design is done, your team can start developing the app. The development time might take from 2-4 months depending upon the size of your app. You want to make sure that the app is developed in sprints or milestones to track the progress. You should test the app after the end of each milestone/sprint. This will enable you to take the necessary step if, you discover with any bugs in the app. You should focus on developing an MVP instead of a full-blown product. This will allow you to get in the market soon and get the feedback. Based on the feedback of initial users of your P2P payment app you can customize your app. After the modification, you can launch your fully-features P2P payment application.

Market your App

Developing an app is not enough, you need to market the app to get the traction. You need to make your targeted audience aware of your app. With the help of the marketing techniques, you can make your app a success by reaching your targeted audience. There are different marketing techniques, which are effective in attracting more users such as SEO marketing, Social media marketing, Email marketing, and others. To check the effectiveness of your marketing technique you can conduct KPIs (key performance indicator) analysis. In KPI analysis, you should consider factors such as app downloads, user review, daily active users, retention rates. You can hire an in-house marketing team or outsource marketing work to an experienced marketing company.

Support and Enhance

When your app is running successfully, it is important to get feedback from the users. Their feedback will help you to enhance your P2P payment app. Based on their feedback, you can make changes in the existing features of your app. It is important to make continuous changes in your app if you want to survive in the competitive market. You can enhance your app by tracking the defects and errors in your P2P payment app. You should conduct the proper testing of your app in order to check that the updated version is working properly.